Centon FG105D - Canon Mount

This is my second flash (my first being my trusty Sunpak Power Zoom 4000AF) and it does a pretty good job at the moment with only a few reservations. It also cost a grand total of £15 including shipping.

(Links will take you to this post's page)

• Build Quality
• Controls
• Other Features
  
• Conclusion
  

Build - 5/10 - Top

Make no mistakes, this is a big flash. Stuck on top of my 400D it looks almost comical and it certainly adds a fair amount of heft when it has the batteries in by shifting the centre of gravity slightly higher up the camera.

The nice thing about the head is that it swivels 180° to allow you to bounce the flash off the wall behind you when it is mounted on your camera, or any large surface in between really when you work the tilt-swivel axes together.

The build quality however I feel is lacking a special something. It feels like there is too much air and dead space inside that allows slight flexing and creaking of the case. Drop it a couple metres and it might just survive, but drop it onto concrete at higher than head height and you are asking for trouble, in my opinion.

The battery door is annoying as well. Whereas the Sunpak has a hinged door that easily allows you to insert the batteries and continue like usual, the Centon requires you to fully remove it before you can put any AAs in, and then you have to push them down to close it again. Major design flaw.

Controls - 6/10 - Top

This flash has the best LCD back light I have seen in a long, long time. Granted I haven't used the Canon or Nikon professional flashguns but that shouldn't detract from the brilliant-ness of the glowing green display.

Cycling through the modes can get vaguely annoying, especially when you miss the one you wanted and have to go through the 5 settings again. It doesn't take long to work out which ones do which though.

There is a multitude of buttons and switches on the back to tell the flash exactly what it should be doing. Should it fire the front, mini flash in addition to the main flash, or just the main by itself? For TTL compatible cameras (ie. Not my 400D) you can also choose first or second curtain sync. The zoom ranges from 24mm to 105, which is helpful and easily controlled using the "zoom" button.

To be clear, the buttons are a bit fiddly and unfortunately over-sensitive. It is easy to skip from 1/1 to 1/8 (missing out 1/2 and 1/4) with only one push of the button - extremely annoying when you have to go through the cycle again to get where you started.

If you sit down and have a quick read of the manual you can work out what to do with this flash - however simply playing with the modes will be just as useful and probably less time consuming.

Other Features - 7/10 - Top

This flash does not work with the hot shoe style eBay Wireless Triggers. In that case it is a damn good job that it has a built in optical trigger it would be near useless for what I use it for - mostly off camera work.

There are several modes built into the flash other than the standard "TTL" and "M" - notably multi-flash and modelling light.

For starters, the modelling light is pretty useless. It can be set to "low frequency" on which it fires 3 medium intensity flashes approximately a second apart from each other. "High frequency" is even worse, setting off a series of flashes not dissimilar to that found in night clubs across the country, of course with much worse quality.

The multi-flash however is brilliant. 'Nuff said really. There up to 10 flashes of 1/16th can be set off with variable timings - from 1Hz to 100Hz, all available with the push of a button.

There is also a tiny mini flash on the front of the unit - just a bit larger than a point and shoot's built in tube or the pop up flash on an SLR which can be turned on or off using a switch at the back. I would presume that this is as a fill to help prevent raccoon eyes when the main light is being bounced off the ceiling, and it quite useful in that respect.


Conclusion - 18/30 - Top

This flash is let down by the fact that it won't be triggered by the cheap eBay Wireless triggers. While this isn't technically anything to do with the flash itself but rather a wiring issue inside the triggers, there are rumours that the Nikon version works perfectly well.

There are a few redundant features that could be removed (the modelling light feature springs to mind first) but what is there is pretty spot on. I haven't had a chance to use the TTL feature as unfortunately my camera doesn't support it.

Because of this I had to tape over the four communication pin contacts on my 400D with electrician's tape - it won't fire the flash otherwise when it is mounted on the hotshoe.

All in all, it can be acquired very cheaply as they are an old model and it is most certainly worth the tenner or so to pick one up, especially if you can't afford a branded Canon or Nikon flash to stick in your umbrella.